It is reputed that Plato once said, “Be kind everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” Which means all of us are in the same boat.We are all vulnerable and who here is not fighting a hard battle either in the past or now or some time in the future.
Reading Psalm 86 the other day I saw my name in this Psalm. For of all the hard things that this Psalm talked about I said this is me. And unless my bet your name is there too.
This Psalm is really a prayer of desperation and vulnerability.
“Incline your ear…for I am poor and needy…”
“Preserve my life.”
“Save your servant.”
“Listen to my cry of supplication…”
“My heart is divided…”
“Give me strength…”
Do you think, most of the Psalms deal with praise and glory to God. But what I discovered is that 65 to 70 of the Psalms are what we call Laments. Again and again God’s people lifted up their pain to God. That’s Lament.
We find this is a little book by the Presbyterian writer Ann Weems. She writes: “On August 14, 1982, the stars fell from my sky. My son, my Todd, had been killed less than an hour after his twenty-first birthday. August 14th 1982 was a long time ago and yet she writes I still weep. She said her friends surrounded her when her son died . And the sympathy cards, casseroles, phone calls and visits just kept coming. And, she says they were a great comfort. But one day her friends went on with their lives and she was left alone with a stack of sympathy cards. Her grief was still raw and hard. And so she turned to the Psalms of Lament: Help me…Hold me…Be with me. Save me.” And out of her grief she began to write this book of prayer poems about her loss. It was a terrible time for her.
But if Psalm 86 is a prayer of Lamentation maybe we put these words down beside us today. A virus that seems to have no end…so many—some we even know, dying. Cooped up in our houses. Wearing these cursed masks. Worrying about our children in school. Will they catch it? And outside these doors a world that just seems to be convulsive. Afghanistan. Climate change. Fires in California. And just last week Hurricane Ida blew in and tore up a lot of New Orleans and the rest of Louisiana and up and down the Eastern seaboard.
And so we come here to this sacred place where people have been worshipping since 1832. And through hymns and prayers and silence and even sermons they lifted their voices and hearts to God.through it all. The civil war…World War One…the great pandemic of 1918….the terrible depression…World War II and the defeat the Nazis…the Civil rights crisis which still goes on..and even down to this time of a cursed Coronavirus. This is what they and most of have found.
“I am poor and needy…”(vs. 1)
“Preserve my life…” (vs. 2)
“Listen to my cry…”(vs. 6)
“Mend my divided heart…”(vs.11)
“Turn to me…” (vs. 16)
And what is to be our response when the stars fall out of our sky?
We can Deny. We can deny our troubles. Or we can say: “You think we got it bad—There are some people out there that are a whole lot worse off than us.”Just sweep your own troubles under the rug.” “We can turn on Netflix or the ball game. One woman coming our the door of the church, shook the Pastor’s hand and said huffily, “We don’t talk about dark things in our church…People want to feel good.“We can find one of these churches where all they sing are happy-clappy songs. We can browse the internet and find Amazon and order something. Or stay all day on Face book.” Somehow all these things have a hollow ring. But I don’t think we can eat cotton candy all the time. We can’t deny where we are today.
We can sink into Despair. We can turn on the tv, read the newspapers or get emails from our friend in Oregon. Oh God…it is so terrible out there. The fires in California. We can keep the TV on all day long. We can get stuck in our grief and can’t move on. We can just talk about “Ain’t it awful to our friends.” And folks some days it looks like it will always look dark.
We can share our pain. We can open up our hearts and share our pain with somebody else. Not everybody. But the amazing thing happens when we really do open our hearts it gives the other person permission to tell us his or her story which is not exactly moonlight and roses. We can take care of one another even the hard ones and especially the difficult ones. I love the old song: “he ain’t heavy he’s my brother or sister." We can think about somebody else than ourselves.
We can turn toward the Laments. We can look at our own situation or someone we love. And we can turn to the Laments. Our prayers to God like this Psalmist did in a hard time. We can look around us and realize everyone we know really is fighting a hard battle. We can come to the realization it isn’t just us and our family…but this circle takes us all in.
And what we find is a different perspective. The world gives us all a little hand of cards and then we are left to play with the hand we've been given.
Now back to the Psalm 86. What was God’s response to this man’s lamentations.
After he poured out all his longings to God. This is what he also said:
in verses 7-1 Faith falters but recovers.
“Lord, you forgives us and help
us…always abounding in your steadfast love…” (vs. 5)
“In this day of my trouble you have answered me…” (vs. 7)
“I give thanks to you Lord, for great is your steadfast love…” (vs. 13a)
“You have delivered me from the gates of Sheol…”vs. (vs.13b)
I have been leading Grief Support Groups for a long time. And one dayI went through the Bible and just picked out those Scriptures that helped and others down the road. And put these in a handout. They covered the paper back and the front. And one of the things I did was to them give them to those in my groups. I asked them to take just one of these verses and live with it all day long and take another Scripture verse the next day. But we all I have to find to keep us healthy this hard time.
Back to Ann Weems that I talked about at the beginning of this sermon how she lost her 21 year old son. After a long time of sloshing through all her pain and bitterness, this is what she discoverd:
“In the godforsaken, obscene quick sand of life,
there is a deafening alleluia
rising from our souls
of those who weep
and of those who weep with those who weep.
If you watch, you will see the hand of God putting the stars back in their skies
one by one.”
May we find those stars in our skies as well. This is a pretty good Benediction.
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